


And Joseph found grace in his sight.

by orphan_account



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Comfort/Angst, F/M, Hallucinations, Mutual Pining, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Prelude to a romance but they're too fucked up to have it happen now ok, Religious Discussion, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 09:53:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15264909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: You’re in the wrong line of work if a few hard stares’ll make you nervous, she added, silently scolding herself.Even so, it wasn’t their stares that made Rook’s head spin as surely as if they had taken her by the shoulders and twisted her around in breathless circles. There was only one set of eyes that made her feel as if the ground had dropped out beneath her, and it certainly didn’t belong to any unwashed Peggie in a crusty sweater. It was the Father's eyes that made her feel weightless, dizzy, but safe.The Father--Joseph Seed.





	And Joseph found grace in his sight.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is in response to a prompt, where I was asked for write a pre-romance fic where Rook gets slyly Blissed in the church at the start of the game, reaches out to Joseph, and he interprets this as her wanting to join him.
> 
> The title is from the Bible, Genesis 39:4.

The atmosphere at Joseph Seed’s compound was beyond tense. It was almost hard to _breathe_ here, even though they were outside and the wind passed around them in a nice, cool breeze.

Rook wrinkled her nose as the wind carried a whiff of unwashed skin and wet dog. _Ugh._

There was very little light shining on the winding dirt path; the stars put up a valiant but fruitless effort to keep the ground lit, and the moon was just a pale white smudge in the cloudless Montana sky. She wasn’t the type to jump at shadows, but that didn’t stop Rook from wincing and clenching her jaw when a few dogs started snapping and snarling from behind flimsy wooden fences.

More than once, Rook had to force herself to keep her eyes forward and her head straight, no matter how the crowd around her jeered, sneered, and shouted. _Focus. Get in, get the guy, get out. Easy. Simple._

Rook knew that something had to be wrong when she saw the crushing crowd of the cultists—locally referred to as “peggies”—all bleed back at a single word from the Father, Joseph Seed. They had been both riled up and calmed far too easily; there had to be _something_ more at work here than just absolute obedience.

Did they have some plan had beforehand, or perhaps even some warning about Rook and her partners’ arrival? The thought sent a shiver down her spine.

“We knew this moment would come,” Joseph said, as if answering her suspicion. He held his hands against two of his armed guards and spoke to them firmly, gently. “We have prepared for it. Go. _Go._ ”

And they went.

Rook stared at them, amazed. Could these people really trust their Father completely, without question? Well, they _were_ a cult. But it wasn’t just trust that pacified their harsh, hard expressions. They all wore looks that were mixtures of anticipation, hope, and fear—and they were pointing that look at _her_.

 _Stop it_ , she wanted to say. An impulsive, almost childish response. _Stop staring._

 _You’re in the wrong line of work if a few hard stares’ll make you nervous_ , she added, silently scolding herself.

Even so, it wasn’t _their_ stares that made Rook’s head spin as surely as if they had taken her by the shoulders and twisted her around in breathless circles. There was only one set of eyes that made her feel as if the ground had dropped out beneath her, and it certainly didn’t belong to any unwashed Peggie in a crusty sweater. It was the Father's eyes that made her feel weightless, dizzy, but  _safe._

_Joseph Seed._

The Father had his eyes on her, his gaze focused, intense, probing, as if the weight of God could work through his body. He looked at her as if he had known her face since Adam and Eve, had known her before he’d ever even _seen_ her.

_Stop freaking out. That’s what he wants._

Rook narrowed her eyes. Even with the Marshal and the Sheriff flanking her, armed and empowered by the federal warrant that Burke clutched like a rosary, it was hard for Rook to feel like they had the upper hand. Joseph was far too calm about all this, and he said they’d been prepared for this. _That_ didn’t exactly fill her with confidence. The Marshal had grumbled about there being possible plants and other people “on the inside” spread throughout Hope County, keeping a close watch over any potential threats that might get in the way of the Project’s goals. Rook had quietly dismissed these thoughts as paranoia, but standing here, looking at Joseph Seed’s eyes, watching his expression still as if hewn from stone, she was starting to reconsider.

This man was a _criminal_. His followers—his family, both by blood and by bond—were no different, and certainly no better. It wouldn’t be beyond any of them to have some kind of stratagem to fall back on should the law come callin’. That really didn’t seem out of line with something Joseph would demand either, considering all the misdeeds and outright _crimes_ his followers committed in his name.

The Marshal’s voice snapped Rook back to the present, silencing her thoughts. “Rookie, cuff this son of a bitch.”

Slowly, without blinking, Joseph held up his hands and pressed them together at the wrist. His eyes never left Rook’s face, his gaze never wavering from that long, focused stare.

Was he trying to intimidate her?

A tremble of tension rippled through the cramped, dimly lit church. The Father’s siblings took turns exchanging looks—sharp glances, raised eyebrows, downturned mouths-and a small, dull murmur of grumbled words. No one moved, apart from Burke and the Sheriff, who were half turned to keep Rook in view.

“Come _on_ , Rookie!” Burke insisted, impatient.

Rook hesitated, still staring at Joseph—his open hands, his calm face. He was too still, too confidant, too… accepting. There had to be something else, something she was missing, something right in front of her face.

As she stood there waiting, wondering, something sharp pricked the side of her neck, like a tip of a knife or a dart. She clapped her hand to the place where the little lance of pain bloomed, but she felt nothing. Something, some blur of white behind Joseph—a woman?—seemed to steady Rook on her feet, and she heard a quiet laugh, sinister and sweet.

Another dizzying ripple passed through her, making her eyes slide out of focus. Something light and bright passed through Joseph’s gaze as he stood there watching her watch him, a sensation that soon settled into warmth. It was a strange heat, the kind she felt in her heart more than on her skin, a heat like dipping your fingers into wax and letting it harden on your skin.

Only Joseph seemed to recognize that something had happened with her, some small imperceptible change that she could barely understand herself.

Little flecks of sparkling light burst around the edges of her vision, framing Joseph’s eerily placid face as if drawn to it. The longer that Rook looked at him in this new light, the more her opinion of him softened. He was no longer _just_ a criminal, someone to lock up, take down, and put away. He was still that, and still a source of frustration, but there was something else lurking beneath, something Rook couldn’t quite place her finger on quite yet. Confusion? Curiosity?

Whatever it was, it didn’t change the warmth that still coursed through her, nor the way her eyes were pinned to Joseph’s face as if tied to him. She took a step forward, and then took another before she could even understand why she had made the first.

Something in Joseph’s eyes brightened as she inched ever closer. “Like a shepherd He will tend His flock,” he intoned, his hands still cupped before him, his voice strong.

“Rook, what the _fuck_ are you doing?” Burke snapped.

Rook heard boots scuffing across the floor behind her, as well as the sound of fists hitting flesh, followed by grunts and yells from voices she _knew,_ voices she should care more for than she felt just then. She tilted her head—tilted it, not turned—and she ran her fingers over Joseph’s own.

This small touch sent a shock through her, making her gasp. Joseph’s hands were rough, and they flinched just a little as she held him. As she pressed her fingers down on his wrists, Joseph’s shoulders lifted up as if he, too, were filling with air, the same air that filled her lungs, as if their lives were one life, one set of lungs, one heart.

“In His arm He will gather the lambs,” Joseph said, softer this time. He moved his hands forward, sliding them up Rook’s wrists all the way to her elbows. He turned his grip so that he could rest his hands on her shoulders, steadying her body under his touch and steadying himself on her in turn.

Slowly, as if overcome with a wave of pain, Joseph’s eyes slid shut. He squeezed Rook’s shoulders, and a tremor in his hands passed through to her body, making them _both_ shake.

“Are you afraid?” she whispered. The words left her mouth before they even formed into a thought. _Why should_ that _matter? Why should I care?_ But she did. She did.

 _This isn’t right_ , she thought, frowning. Where was the Marshal? Where was the Sheriff? They should have stopped whoever grabbed her before they were even close enough _to_ grab her.

“Burke?” she whispered, her voice low, quiet. “Sheriff?”

Neither of them answered. It was this silence that finally freed the fear from Rook’s heart, and it cut through her, sharp and cold, like a knife. She turned her head, eager to look, to find out the truth, no matter how horrible. What would she find? _Who_ would she see?

Joseph’s hands framed her face in a gentle cage of flesh and bone. The little wooden beads of his rosary dangled against her ear, tinkling softly like a chime. “It’s too late to turn back,” he said.

Rook tensed, not for fear this time, but with a strange, inner fire that burned in her belly. It was a fury without violence, a wrath without a call for blood. “You can’t keep me here,” she argued. “I won’t let you.”

Slowly, with an almost infuriating tenderness, Joseph shook his head. “The step you took towards me was but the first on your path,” he said, his eyes dropping to the toe of her boots. “You chose to do that. Just you. No one else.” His gaze ticked up to meet hers again. “You just needed to _see_.”

The little gold and white lights danced around them, bending and warping to the sound of Joseph’s voice.

A long stretch of silence passed between them, making Rook keenly aware of how hard her heart is working against her ribs, and how Joseph’s touch on her face was so steady, so sure. Eventually he stepped back, his gaze lingering on her face.

“Leave us,” he said, his voice raised.

Rook frowned. Did he mean her?

A man’s voice spoke up from somewhere over her shoulder—when did that happen? How could someone have gotten behind her and she didn’t know? Another man’s voice, this time from somewhere in front of Rook, joined the outcry of the first, and Rook turned her eyes to the sound, eager to have something else come into view through all the hazy, blinding light. Only the woman in white stayed silent, watchful, patient.

“Leave us,” Joseph said again. He stepped back and dropped his hands from Rook’s face. His eyes moved in a slow, almost lazy trail down her body, landing at last on her hip. “Disarm her and go.”

It took just a moment for Rook to realize what he had said, and by then it was too late. Her limbs were like lead, her thoughts like drying blood—thick, sluggish. Her gun was out of her holster and beyond her grasp before she could even process that it _could_ be taken from her.

“Give it back!”

Someone laughed once, a low, bitter sound.

“It’s not funny,” Rook snapped, feeling foolish, like a child.

“She’s right,” a new voice chimed in. A woman’s voice, to Rook’s surprise.

And then these voices were gone.

The air in the church bled from gold to a glimmering honeydew green. Gentle cotton tufts of cloud and mist hovered close, so close—Rook could pull them out of the sky if she were to move her hand, but she closed them instead and kept her eyes peeled, bright, wide, open.

Every footstep clamored like the roar of thunder with no storm to darken the impossibly lime-lit sky. She heard metal clanging somewhere, like a cage rattled or chains being pulled, or a lock set into place, and she waited for Joseph to move before she felt ready to do the same.

Joseph held out his hands again, his face stern, paternal, and somehow _pleading_.

Rook spoke before he could. “We’re alone now,” she said, her voice strong like music, soft like a violin’s trembling note. “Alone but together.”

“Together,” he corrected, “but not alone. God is watching.”

She raised an eyebrow.

Joseph stared down at her—he was several inches taller, and he _was_ standing on the dais. “Where do you think you are?” he asked. When she didn’t answer, he supplied his own into the silence. “You have disrupted my service, you have struck fear into the heart of my family who were gathered to worship. Your friends have entered my home and the house of God and threatened me, and you—” he pointed at her, “— _you_ hesitated long enough to let a whisper of doubt stay your hand. You waited. You watched. You listened.” Joseph lowered his hand. “Did you not think God would do the same?”

Before Rook could reply, something _spun_ her head, making her thoughts scatter, her vision blur. All the words she wanted to say dropped away from her lips like pebbles slipping out of a loose fist, and she staggered and threw out her hands, clawing at the air, desperate not to fall. It seemed such a long way down to the floor.

Without hesitation, Joseph reached out and steadied her before she could fall. Together they knelt on the church dais, which bled away and became a soft patch of grass that sighed beneath them. It still creaked like old wood, which made Rook frown, confused.

 _Are we outside?_ How did they get _there_?

 _The Bliss,_ a voice whispered in Rook’s ear, like a little hidden fairy eager to help. She shivered. She’d heard of the ways the cult made its converts more… amenable, easier to convince and soothe. But she expected it to be like that Jonestown cult from the 70s, the ones who spiked their Kool-Aid with drugs and poisons until hundreds dropped like flies. She expected it to be cruel, to be horrifying and suffocating—but this? This was easy, as easy as blinking, breathing. All she had to do was _be_ and be free.

“Some will gladly heed and be brought to heel,” Joseph continued, squeezing her hand. “Others must first be _made_ to sit still, to listen. How else could a child learn if the Father does not set the down and sit them straight?”

“I’m not a child,” she said, heat flooding her voice. “If you want me to listen to you, then _convince_ me. Don’t preach to me.”

It was as if they spoke soul to soul now, transcending blood and body and bone, until they arrived in the lost Garden that, but for temptation, would still thrive and bloom today. Rook’s eyes passed quickly over Joseph’s form, waiting for him to speak, to move.

“And where should I start?” he asked.

“By explaining yourself.”

“Explaining what, exactly?”

Rook took in a breath. “Well let’s look at the charges against you,” she said, speaking fast. “Suspicion of kidnapping with the intent to harm. You _took_ people, you threaten them, you hurt them. You take them as if you have both the authority or the right—as if they were… were _things_.” She shook her head and the air around her surged bright with a golden glaring glow, a fire to burn like a holy blade.

“Souls do not harvest themselves,” Joseph said.

“Are you a reaper now? Are you death?”

A muscle in Joseph’s jaw twitched. “I offer them a gift—a way to salvation.”

“Gifts can be given but can also be rejected, you know,” Rook countered. “Especially if the one giving it is… well, questionable.” It was the nicest word she could think to use against Joseph without swearing in a church. Faithless as she was, she didn’t quite want to drop any colorful language in a holy building.

“You can question my methods, but you cannot call me a liar.” There was something soft, mournful about these words. He sounded… well, he sounded almost _hurt_ by what she said, as if her words had a power over him that could wound and heal.

The glow of Rook’s disapproval dimmed, darkened, and gradually gave way to the peaceful green haze once again.  “I didn’t call you a liar,” she said.

“Splitting hairs,” Joseph argued gently. “You called me questionable, which suggests you question what I say, which means you _doubt_ me.”

“I didn’t say anything about your message,” Rook said. “I’m talking about _you_ , what _you_ do. Which is why we came here in the first place.”

“You were led here by a man so loyal to a corrupt society that he was too blind to see its depravity,” Joseph countered. “You were led here by a man who refused to listen, because he was too afraid of what he might hear.”

Rook’s heart went cold. “You mean the Marshal.”

Joseph nodded once. “You have heard stories about us,” he said, his voice low, churning. “About me, about my family.” His hand tightened inside hers and he leaned forward, close enough so that she could count the eyelashes framing his eyes. “And I’ve heard about yours as well.”

Rook closed her eyes and held her breath. He was close, so close—she could hardly bear it.

“You may shut your eyes but you cannot close your ears.”

“Would you have carried on like this if I’d arrested you?” she asked.

“You would have dragged me away without bothering to listen?”

“You could have talked on the way to the chopper,” she said, “and at the jail. And in lock up. You _could_ have waived your right to be silent. No one would have stopped you.”

After a moment, Joseph drew his hand out of hers. She opened her eyes to see him steady his grip on his knees and stand up, his bones creaking like old hinges. The green and white light takes the form of fluttering flowers and long, bending willows that bowed in a breeze Rook could _see_ but not _feel_. She placed her hands on the ground—the grass was hard like wood—and she watched as a burst of blue butterflies crawled from her fingers and charted a path to Joseph’s bare back, marked by sins and scars. One landed on each point of the cross tattooed into his skin, and they hung there like nails, like wounds.

“Then they that gladly received his word were baptized,” Joseph said, his tone firm, commanding, “and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.”

Rook watched as Joseph’s shoulders rose and fell, his breath labored as if his lungs were eager for air and could not find enough of it to be satisfied. “How can they receive my word if they cannot _find_ me?”

“But you don’t _let_ them find you,” she said. “Not always. And some of those that do find you aren’t even allowed to leave.”

“Three thousand souls,” Joseph repeated, tilting his head back to peer at the impossible sky. “If I had the time to be patient, I would have gladly waited. I would have stood with open arms to welcome each and every one of my children—but my hand was forced.”

The butterflies on Joseph’s back burst into flame, charring him in blisters of red and black. Something, the same force that first moved through Rook when she felt that prickle on the back of her neck, now moved through the air, burning away all the green and golden glow, reducing every tree and flower to dark, smoldering ash.

Rook closed her eyes and _listened_ to that little voice crouched in her ear. _Don’t you remember? Didn’t you see the headlines?_

Almost every news headline for the country was bleak and getting worse ever since the 2016 presidential election, but that grim, dour tone was only increasing in intensity as the months progressed. Even the news from overseas seemed to be reaching a feverish pitch of fear: suicide bombings at embassies, diplomats and ambassadors casually poisoned over evening tea, tensions rising higher and higher, with no attempt to pacify or meet in the middle.

 _At least Joseph’s talking to you,_ this voice, her instinct, her kind fairy, whispered. _At least he’s giving you a chance to be heard._ And Rook wanted to give him some credit for this, but the pain in her head and her still nagging insistence that she had been drugged on the sly made it just a little difficult to think too kindly of him.

 _But don’t desperate times call for desperate measures?_ The voice in her insisted. _All he did was stop your hand before you did something you would regret._ And couldn’t the world use more of that right now? Someone, some _thing_ , to pull a person back before they leap without looking, speak without thinking, act without feeling?

 _“It’s gonna get a whole lot worse before it gets any better,”_ Sheriff Whitehorse had said just a few days ago. He and Rook were glaring at the latest news chyron that scrolled across the bottom of the news, framed in glaring red, white and blue.

 _“Why can’t it just get better?”_ Rook had asked him. She opened her eyes in the church—in the church that was a field on fire, burning bright—and wondered the same thing.

“You think our world is beyond saving.”

“I know it is,” he said, his voice heavy. “I do.”

“But not its people.”

He nodded.

Rook stood up. Tears flooded her eyes, burning her in a new way, different from a flame.

“But only some of them,” she whispered. “And only the ones _you_ choose.”

With a long, shuddering breath, Joseph finally turned to face her again. He lifted up his hands and once more Rook was moving before she knew that she _wanted_ to—and she _does_ want to, strangely, somehow. Their hands touched, but Joseph’s fingers skimmed over her arms once more, until he was gently, carefully, curving them around Rook’s back, pulling her forward.

She didn’t resist, didn’t want to resist. The air around them burned bright like fire, red like fresh blood, and her heart howled like a storm that could not be calmed. And he was so _warm_ , his eyes bright and blazing, his lips slightly parted as if he was struck silent, wordless with awe.

“I didn’t ask for this,” he whispered, pulling her against his chest. He lowered his cheek to the top of her head and cradled her close, his hands sliding up to stroke her hair. “I was chosen—as are you.”

Rook shut her eyes and listened to the hum of his voice, the drum of his heart. “By you?”

“I can _save_ you,” he insisted, his voice thin, pleading. He tightened his hold on her, as if he was the one that needed to be saved.

“So you say.”

“You still doubt me?”

“Not what you say—what you _do_.” Rook sighed. “Prove to me that you can save me while doing no harm. Prove to me you can save me without raising a hand against me or my friends, my partners, or the people of this county. Prove to me you can save without spilling blood, or stealing, or threatening, or hurting anyone who is not with you. Prove to me you can save _without drugging someone…_ and then, maybe… maybe then, you and I can meet again and have a talk.”

Joseph said nothing, did nothing. He simply held her close to his chest, breathing in deep, drinking in the air of her.

“Can you do that?” she asked.

“I can.” Rook heard his voice catch in his throat.

“Will you?”

“I will.”

“Do you promise?”

“I do,” he whispered, as if the words were a confession dug out of the wound in his heart. “I do. I do.”

Rook stirred in his arms and turned to peer up at him. “That’s three times you promised,” she said, taking a step back.

Reluctantly, his face pained, his lips pressed down right, Joseph gently lifted his hand up and let her leave his embrace.

“I’ll hold you to it,” she said, even as she stepped away from being held at all.

Joseph’s expression darkened, as did the air around them both. He looked… heavy again, heavy and hurting, but he made no move to stop her. The little white tufts of light burned and burst in the air around his head, and they seared a hole in the smoldering air, driving away the hallucination until the dark, dimly lit church returned.

With her gun gone, all Rook had left was her handcuffs and radio. She unclipped them both and held the first out for Joseph to take.

“To remind you to show restraint,” she said, lowering the cuffs into his hands. She gave the radio a shake in her other hand. “And this is how you’ll reach me.”

“Where will you go?” he asked, and there was something almost terrifyingly childish about his question, like a child crouched in the dark.

“To get my partners,” she said. “And to regroup somewhere safe, somewhere… away from here. Not far, of course. But far enough.”

“What will you tell them?” he asked. “How will you explain why you came back without me?”

Rook considered this. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I’ll take a line out of someone else’s book and remind them about mercy.”

Joseph stared at her, curious.

“Matthew 5:7,” she said with a small, sad smile. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

She watched as Joseph closed his fingers around the handcuffs in a tight grip. The metal clanked and clattered in his touch. He popped one of them open and clapped it to his wrist, the same one that was bound up in the rosary.

“Therefore be merciful,” he said, half to himself as a reminder, and half to her, as another vow, solemn and true. “Just as your Father will show mercy to you.”

Rook nodded and turned on her heel. She marched to the doors of the church, every nerve in her screaming two different demands. _Turn back—don’t turn back. Eyes forward—look back, look at him, just once._ She knocked on the door until someone outside undid the lock, and she met their hard, worried stares with patience.

“Let her pass unharmed,” Joseph commanded. There was a mournful note to his voice, and something else, something… warm. Almost loving. “Let her pass, so that she might return. This is the will of the Father… and of his Grace. Lost but now found, once blind, but now seen.”

 _Our will_ , Rook thought with a flutter in her heart. _Our will, his and mine—the Father’s, and his Grace._


End file.
